Compromise of Microsoft engineer’s account led to Chinese hack of US officials

The recently disclosed Chinese hack of senior officials at the U.S. State and Commerce departments stemmed from the compromise of a Microsoft engineer’s corporate account, Microsoft Corp said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Microsoft said the engineer’s account had been penetrated by a hacking group it dubs Storm-0558, which is alleged to have stolen hundreds of thousands of emails from top American officials including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink.

The blog post addressed some unanswered questions around the incident, which drew fresh scrutiny to Microsoft’s security and led to calls to investigate the company’s practices.